Creating pedigree

Hi all..I’ve been breeding for three years...but, that was a whole different type of breeding....we started out 5hinking we were going to eat them...failed at that...we are farmers, but we got attached. So we sold them...but, now I’ve become mesmerized by colors, genes, creating quality, etc.......that I’m selling all my unpedigee rabbits, stepped up my game, created a Rabbitry, etc. so...most of my rabbits have a pedigree..but some don’t. I understand to create one, I just need to keep track of dates, etc, go back three generations. Then, I need to mail them in to the ARBA? I have a ton of rabbits that I bought from a breeder...he knew their generations wayyy back, but never bothered sending in the papers. He sent them in just now for me. Said they are back and he’s filling them out. I have a new litter from the mom...so, do I just print out a pedigree sheet from the net, and fill it out with the other info? All my pedigrees, are hand written. By the way, my litter I’m discussing...adorable harlequin lionheads. I’m keeping the one with the best split face...it’s a buck too!! I’m so happy...I can create magpies!!

Ok, thanks for any help with this!!

Rabbit pedigrees aren't registered with ARBA like dogs are with the AKC. To get a pedigreed rabbit, you just write out a pedigree. Now, if you want to get your rabbit registered - that's different. A registered rabbit has been inspected by a rabbit judge and judged to be a good example of their breed. You'll need a copy of their pedigree to show to the judge, but AFAIK, nothing is sent to ARBA until a judge has looked at the rabbit.

You may want to look into Kintraks. They are a pedigree program that has all kinds of uses other than merely making pedigrees. You can track matings, degrees of inbreeding, siblings, health records, sales, individual journals for each rabbit, etc., etc. It's a free download and you can enter in quite a few animals until you need to get a license for the full program. It's not all that expensive, under $20 last time I looked. Free upgrades for life! And, if you have an older machine (Win7 and before, I think it was) then it's a free download for the fully operational program. Hmm, which, if you didn't have the $15, you could download the free VMware Workstation and load an older OS on your computer and put the Kintrak Win7 version there. Although, you'd need an old OS to load into VMware, so that can get pretty complicated to save $15.

In my Kintraks, I made an animal entry named 'Hillside Farm Hawaii' so I have a an overall journal for things that affect all the rabbits and not just the individual rabbit.

Thank you for the recommendation Hotcatz.

I looked into it over the weekend and had my mind made up in less than 10 minutes. It's an awesome program.

I'm still learning about all the features but it's extremely comprehensive.

Glad to be of help! It takes awhile to get Kintracks customized to fit your individual herd, but once it's done you'll be able to look up records from previous years really easily. I'm always referring to the program for one tidbit of data or another. I think having it has made raising better rabbits not only possible, but almost easy.

I've sorted out the name selection list on the side by naming the females F-then bunny name and the males M-then bunny name. That sorts them by gender in the pop out name list.

I also add their color behind their name and sometimes an additional comment so that shows up on the bunny name menu as well. I have one named "M Hillside DaffyDill - extra fluffy tort". That name tells me it's a buck, the flower name tells me he was born last year which was a 'flower' year and the 'extra fluffy' is what may be a modifier to the angora long wool gene which I'm trying to track and the 'tort' tells me he's tortoiseshell. There can be between twenty to forty bunnies here at any particular time so having extra hints of an individual bunny's characteristics next to their name can be helpful.

When printing out a pedigree, I change their name to just their name, print the pedigree and then add it all back in again so I can sort the database easily.